


Faceless in Our Dreaming State

by J (j_writes)



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-24
Updated: 2011-07-24
Packaged: 2017-10-21 17:36:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/227804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_writes/pseuds/J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raven, Emma, and what comes after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faceless in Our Dreaming State

"This is what he knows." Emma's voice was cool and steady, replying to a train of thought that Raven hadn't voiced.

"Don't do that," she said flatly.

Emma's eyes flickered toward her for a moment, then went back to the window. "Stay on the road long enough," she continued, "and you forget how to be anything else."

"Stay _anything_ long enough and you forget how to be anything else," Raven replied.

"Profound," Emma said, her voice flat. She waved a hand at the hotel suite around them, as polished and impersonal as she was. "He's spent his entire adult life in this room," she said. "This one room, all over the world. Of course it's what he'd return to."

"I didn't expect anything different," Raven said, although she had. She just hadn't known what it was.

Emma laughed. "You didn't expect _anything_."

"In any other conversation, this would be the point where you ask me why I'm here. I guess that's unnecessary from you, though, isn't it?"

"I don't know why you're here," Emma said. She looked Raven straight in the eye for the first time since they'd returned to the suite, and Raven could feel the sharp ache behind her eyes as her mind was searched. "Because _you_ don't."

She turned away, and the ache faded. "You're not very good at that," she said flatly. "I can feel you." She meant the words to sting, but Emma just smiled the smile of someone who knows everything there is to know.

"You've put your trust in a telepath you couldn't feel before," Emma said. "That worked out well for you, did it?" Raven stood abruptly instead of answering. "Enjoy your walk. I'll keep an eye on you," Emma said, like she was doing her a favor.

Raven walked without a destination, the air hot and oppressive around her, counting the blocks before she felt free of the relentless prickle of Emma's mind against hers. As she'd half expected, that moment never came.  
______________

Emma usually had the kind of poise that Raven could never manage in any form, which was what made it so startling when she jerked upright in the middle of breakfast one morning, her plate shattering to pieces against the floor. Janos looked up, alarmed, and reached for her with concern in his expression before she twitched away, composing herself. "I'm all right," she said aloud, but when her eyes met Raven's, it was with a different message entirely. _He's alive._

Raven felt herself sag back into her seat with a release of tension she hadn't even realized had been coiling her so tightly for so long. She reached for the connection to Emma, searching for details, but there were none. Just the distant familiar touch of Charles's mind grasping outward, feeling strange and warped through Emma's senses. She pulled back, wincing, and Emma closed off the connection abruptly.

Janos leaned under the table to sweep up the shards of glass in a little puff of air and deposit them into the trash can. _Is he all right?_ Raven thought hard at Emma, but she either didn't hear or decided not to answer.

Raven focused intently on her plate until Janos and Angel had left the table, then leaned over, grabbed Emma by the arm, and dragged her bodily into the hallway. "Show me," she said. Emma looked taken aback, so she touched her fingers to her temple, like Charles used to, just to make herself clear.

"No."

"I wasn't asking." She nodded toward the wall that split her room from Erik's. "You'd show him."

"He'd never ask."

 _Which is exactly why I need to know,_ Raven didn't say. She could feel Emma's mind against hers, and for once, she didn't bother trying to hide anything, trying to make it more difficult for her. She just stood there, their eyes locked in something that was less a battle of wills than a negotiation.

"You asked," Emma reminded her with a tone of warning, and then reached up to touch Raven's temple right where she'd put her own fingers. Her hand was cool, and the pressure was oddly soothing for a moment before their thoughts merged and Raven lost all sense of her body entirely.

It was such a brief moment of connection, flickering, and she could feel Charles's concern and preoccupation, but more than that, his _determination_ , his desperate need to reach out and connect. His mind felt familiar against hers, even splintered by Emma's thoughts, and she flung herself towards him, wanting to know everything and getting only fragments, brief captures of feeling and memory, before the connection faded out, and she was left reaching out to nothing but a solid wall of diamond.

 _Charles_ , she tried to say, but her mouth didn't cooperate, so she called out in Emma's mind instead.

Emma was wincing when Raven finally felt together enough to open her eyes, and she could feel the disconcerting sensation of bits of her being shuffled back into place. When Emma finally pulled back all the way, Raven sagged against the wall, feeling hopelessly exhausted.

"You should - " Emma began, then looked up as Erik's door opened. He stopped mid-stride, eyes flickering from Raven to Emma, then back again. His face went sickly pale for a moment, then he swore sharply in German and pushed by them down the hallway, not looking back. His door swung shut and locked with a loud click behind him.

"What - ?" Raven began, and stopped when she saw the way Emma was looking at her. She followed her gaze downward, then swallowed.

"Oh, hell."

"Sharing like that," Emma said lamely, "it can make people lose control of themselves sometimes."

The suit Raven wore was rumpled and familiar, the tie hanging loose around her neck, and as she looked down, a piece of brown hair flopped into her vision. She pushed it back unthinkingly, and concentrated all her energy into shedding Charles's body and returning to her own. It took everything she had, and when she was blue again, she slid down the wall, wrapping her arms around her knees.

"He's hurt," she said.

"He'll get over it," Emma replied immediately, then touched the edges of Raven's mind. "But that's not what you meant."

"No." Raven looked up at her. "You could have mentioned."

"You wanted to see," Emma said unapologetically.

"They're rebuilding Cerebro."

"Yes," Emma agreed. There had been a brief flash of Hank, bent over a console, looking up expectantly into the eyes that Raven was looking out of, and it hurt more than she had thought it would, seeing him leaning towards her, concern in eyes that were still unfamiliar to her, but that Charles had gotten used to.

"You miss them," Emma said, sounding clinically curious.

"I don't expect you'd know anything about that," Raven said, more coldly than she meant to.

Emma said nothing for a long moment, just looked down at her. Finally, she pushed her hair back and turned in the direction Erik had gone. "Can I get you anything?" she asked without a single hint of concern in her voice.

"No," Raven said. "I'm fine."

Emma's shoes clicked down the hallway, and Raven sat there, shaking, arms around her knees. "Thanks," she said, once Emma was out of earshot, but she felt a shift in her mind that might have been acknowledgement.  
______________

"Here will be fine."

They had materialized into the middle of a rainstorm, Azazel ducking under an awning by the side of the road just a little too late to keep them both from being drenched to the skin.

"Perhaps I should take you a bit closer?" he offered, his tone concerned.

"I can take care of myself," she told him, and morphed into a muscular, intimidating man, raindrops flying off her in every direction as she changed.

He had to tip his head up to look her in the eyes then, and was smiling a little as he pulled his arm back and held his hands up in apparent surrender. "Magneto worries," he said by way of explanation.

"About everything," she agreed. "I'm fine, Azazel."

He nodded. "I do not doubt it." He took one more look down the rain-soaked street, then disappeared in a puff.

It wasn't a long walk to the hotel, but it was a cold one, a wet one, in feet she wasn't familiar with. The clerk at the desk was flipping through a magazine and didn't look up as Raven entered the lobby. She stood over him for a few moments before clearing her throat loudly. He glanced up.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm meeting a gentleman who should have checked in already," she said.

The boy smirked. "Lots of men've checked in," he said. "Hardly any gentlemen. Going to have to narrow that one down."

"He's blue," Raven said flatly. "How's that for narrow?"

The kid made a face. "Oh, him. 1682," he said, waving a hand back towards the door. "To the left," he added.

"Some security you've got here," she muttered on her way back out the door. She made it all the way down the left-hand side of the building before realizing that the boy had meant her other left. Her heavy feet made too much noise as she stomped her way back past the lobby, and she knocked too hard at the door, glaring at the peephole, arms crossed.

"I think you have the wrong room," a voice said on the other side of the door.

She opened her mouth, then closed it again, looking down at herself. "Hank," she said, "it is pouring, I am soaked to the skin, and I have traveled hundreds of miles to be here. I think you should probably open this door."

The door creaked open, and Hank's face peeked out, still startling in its newness. He was smiling, the bastard. "I don't think it counts as traveling hundreds of miles when you have a teleporter," he said. He stepped back and held the door open, and she was changing back into her blue form before he'd even gotten it closed behind her. She wrung her hair out on the rug, and he stood watching her like she was something miraculous.

She shifted on her feet a little uncomfortably. She'd gotten used to walking around their suite like this, blue and bare, because Erik made her feel like it was more shameful to put clothes on than take them off, and Emma had seen everything she had to offer anyway. It had been awkward around the others, for a while, but that time had long passed. Here, she had to start the process all over again, and even though she could no longer tell when Hank was blushing, she saw the way his eyes traveled over her body, then shifted away, and it had the same effect.

"Did you want a towel?" he asked her.

"Did you want me to have one?" she looked at him directly, and was faintly surprised when he shifted his eyes back to hers, looking taken aback.

"I just meant - " he waved a hand at her. "You're soaked. I didn't know if you wanted to dry off."

"Oh." She looked down at herself, and shivered belatedly. "That'd be nice, actually."

It got easier after that, warm and dry and sitting on the towel across the bed from Hank, a tray of room service and the contents of the minibar scattered between them. They told stories, for a while, harmless and innocuous, no details, just moments that were disconnected from everything else, and when she asked about Cerebro, Hank lit up and talked about their plans for about an hour and a half, only half of which she could really follow. Their conversation fell into a lull after that, him leaning back against the headboard, her stretched out on her stomach beside him, and when she looked up and met his eyes, she found herself wishing she was a telepath for the first time in her life, so that they could do this in a few seconds without all the messy words.

"How is he?" she asked, finally, because she had to.

"He's…planning," Hank said, with a fond smile she had seen used for Charles too many times to count.

"In his element, then," she said.

"Pretty much, yeah." Hank hesitated. "You know…" he hedged, and Raven cut him off.

"I know," she said. That hung in the silence between them for a moment. "Actually, that reminds me," she said. "You'll be pleased to know that Cerebro worked. At least for a second, a few weeks ago."

He brightened. "Really?" he asked, sitting up a little straighter.

She nodded. "Emma saw you. Charles," she corrected, then shrugged. "Both of you."

Hank beamed. "That's wonderful, he'll be thrilled." He paused, and eyed her. "Does that have something to do with – " he broke off, frowning. "Did Erik send you here?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous, a tone she'd never heard from him before.

"No!" she said quickly, and sat up, reaching to touch his face, the unfamiliar texture rough against her palm. "Hank, no. I…" she hesitated, then told the truth. "I made Emma show me what she'd seen. I…I had to know."

She could feel his jaw twitch under her touch, but his hand came up to cup hers, warm and broad. "You left," he reminded her gently.

She laughed, harsher than she meant it. "I recall that, thanks." He looked pained, so she continued. "That doesn't mean I stopped caring."

Hank turned his face away from her hand. "He's not an easy man to stop caring about, I imagine," he admitted.

She reached to turn his face to her again. "I saw _you_ , Hank," she told him. "You were looking right at me, and…I missed you." The words felt weak and inadequate, and as unfamiliar in her voice as they had sounded in Emma's. When their mouths met, it was like the first time all over again, his hands lifting her easily to straddle him, so different from the shy boy whose lap she'd settled into all those months ago. He kissed the same, though, briefly hesitant, then desperate, trying to get every ounce of sensation out of each moment he could have his hands on her. They traveled up her back, holding her, wide and warm and solid, and she leaned down against him, losing herself completely in the comfortable heat that sparked between them.

In the morning, she lay awake for a long time, listening to him snoring quietly, and moved the bed deliberately when she got up, so his eyes snapped open. He reached out a hand for her, and she took it, kneeling beside him and kissing him one last time, and when she pulled back, he said quietly, "Come back with me?"

"No," she told him, and transformed still holding his hand. "Don't ask me again."

He never did.  
______________

"So," Raven said, leaning against the doorframe. "How much are you telling him?"

Emma didn't look up from the steaming mug in her hands. "Telling who about what?" she asked calmly.

"Erik, and you know very well about what." Raven let her thoughts turn to long nights in a seedy motel, conversations about everything and nothing, hands and heat and more history than either of them were comfortable with.

"Only the parts that concern him," Emma said, and Raven had no idea if she meant that to be reassuring or threatening.

"None of it concerns him," Raven said. "And I'd tell you that you have no right knowing any of it yourself, but that's a risk any of us takes, doing anything knowing we're living with a telepath."

"And you know all about that," Emma said in a tone of agreement. "Mystique, I assure you, I have no interest in filling the telepathic void that's been left in your life."

"I have no interest in asking you to," Raven replied, leaning against the doorframe. "I was looking for Erik, anyway."

"I know." The impassive face that followed was infuriating.

"Any idea where he is?" she prompted.

"No." Emma tilted her mug towards Raven. "Tea?" she asked. It was barely an offer.

"I don't like tea. Which you probably knew already."

Emma shrugged. "I did." She took another sip and settled back into the couch. "I like it. It calms my nerves."

"Your nerves don't seem to need any calming."

Emma smiled serenely at her over the teacup.

Raven shook her head and turned on her heel to head back towards her room. "Tell Erik I'm looking for him."

Barely a moment passed when Azazel's door opened in front of her. "You needed something?" Erik asked.

Raven breathed out a laugh. "You are impossible," she called back to the sitting room, and Erik smiled in what might have been commiseration.  
______________

"He knows," was the first thing out of Hank's mouth as she let herself into the room, and she turned, blinking at him.

"Hello to you too," she said. She held out her hands. "Of course he knows, Hank. How could you possibly have expected anything different?" She paused. "He's not trying to _forbid_ you to come here, or some nonsense, is he? Because he can be – "

"No," Hank said quickly. "He's not." He crossed the room and took Raven by the arms lightly, holding onto her like letting her go was the last thing he ever wanted to do. "That's kind of the problem. You go back, and you're in a room with Emma for a second, she knows everything. I go back, I'm in a room with the Professor, and it's the same thing. There can't be any secrets, living like this."

"Spoken like a man who hasn't lived with a telepath his whole life. Hank, I _know_ Charles. Better than anyone else, and I've said nothing to you that I don't expect him to take from you as soon as you step foot in that house again." She frowned, thinking of Emma. "Tell me you've been as cautious."

"I have," Hank said quickly. "Of course I have. But we shouldn't _have_ to be. What if the day comes when something you've told me – something that meant nothing at the time, but becomes relevant – ends up getting you hurt, or worse? I don't think…I couldn't handle that."

She frowned. "Has something happened?"

"No." His answer was too quick, too nonspecific, and she pulled back.

"Hank."

"Nothing's happened," he said. "Not yet. But…Cerebro's working again. It's working, and we're going to start looking for kids. If we come across the wrong one, if we get another telepath in the house…there are a thousand ways this could go wrong."

"And if you haven't thought through every one of them already, you're a fool," she said with more sharpness than she meant to. He looked wounded. "This was never a good idea, Hank," she said. "It's not any more of a bad idea today than it was two weeks ago, or it will be two weeks from now."

"No," he said, and leaned down to kiss her, his hands tight against her hips. When he pulled back, he wouldn't meet her eyes. "But today, I'm still able to walk away. In two more weeks, in a month, I don't know that I'll be able to do that."

"You misguided noble bastard," she said, "I don't need your _protection_." She spit the word out like a curse.

"No," he agreed, "if anything, someday, it'll probably be the other way around."

His fingers were clumsy on the lock of the door as he undid it. He stood in the doorway, backlit by the lights outside. "This time," she said quietly, "you just remember that you're the one walking away."

"Oh, I will," he told her, "always."

She couldn't bear the thought of spending the night in the bed alone, so she changed into a man, walked to the nearest bar, and drank until she felt like fighting, fought until she felt like doing nothing at all, and then sat on the curb, sobering and bruised, and waited for Azazel.  
______________

"Here." Erik sprawled out on the sofa next to her, a drink in each hand, and offered one to her. "You need this."

"I don't- " she started to object, then sighed and took it. "Thank you," she said instead. He watched the TV playing on mute for a few minutes, and didn't say anything. "Did you…need something?" she finally prompted.

"No," he said. He took a sip of his drink.

"I don't want to talk about it," she said, heading him off at the pass, and he tilted his head against the back of the couch to look at her.

" _Good_ ," he said with feeling. "No, I had something else on my mind." He paused. "Although not entirely unrelated. A project, of sorts."

She looked at him over her drink. "I might appreciate a project," she hedged.

He smiled. "Emma tells me they've rebuilt that infernal contraption."

She couldn't help but laugh. "Those young whippersnappers and their newfangled technologies," she said, nudging her leg against his. She sobered a little, and nodded. "Emma should mind her own goddamn business. But yeah, it's finished."

"She wouldn't be of much use to us if she did," Erik pointed out.

Raven gave him a withering look. "And that's all we are, of course," she said. "The use that we are to you."

He looked at her sharply, but his voice was mild when he spoke. "You know me better than that by now, I should hope."

She sighed, looking into her glass. "I wouldn't have come with you if I didn't," she agreed. "So what's this project?"

He held out a hand in something like a shrug. "Travel," he said. "Emma and I are headed to Las Vegas. There's…business I would like her to attend to out there. But to build a community of mutants, stronger than that which the humans believe possible, strong enough to challenge their numbers on the day this comes down to a fight – we will need to expand. So your job, you and Azazel, will be to find more of us. Find us, and charm us."

"I don't know that charming is exactly a word to describe me," she pointed out. "Or Azazel," she added as an afterthought. She didn't add that Charles had always been the charming one in the family. She didn't need to.

He smiled at her, a soft smile she hadn't seen nearly often enough since they left the mansion. "I was charmed," he pointed out. "And I don't need to tell you that's no easy feat."

She didn't point out that she hadn't been the one doing the charming. Again, it didn't seem necessary. Instead, she swallowed down the last of her drink, and asked, "What business do you have in Las Vegas?"

He set his glass aside and leaned forward, looking at her intently. "Tell me," he said, "what do you know of the Hellfire Club?"  
______________

"You know," Raven was saying as they walked away from the house, around a corner into an alleyway, "I'm starting to envy the way they got to do this the last time." Azazel was silent by her side, which was nothing new, so she continued. "Government funding, getting to fly or drive from state to state. It gave them a break, you know? Five days of this, and we've seen more people than they got to in their entire – " Azazel's foot caught against the sidewalk, making him stumble slightly. His tail flickered out from under his coat to balance himself, then tucked away again as quickly as it had appeared. "You okay, there?" She looked up at him, and then stopped, taking him by the shoulders, pulling him to a halt in the middle of the sidewalk. "Hey," she said, concerned. "You don't look good."

"Thank you," he said dryly.

"No, really." She peered at him. "I didn't think it was possible for you to look pale, but you're getting a little…pink."

He pulled back, turning away, "I am good," he said roughly. His movements were determined with a hint of desperation as he made his way towards a dumpster in the back of the alley, then ducked behind it. He was leaning against it when she caught up, glaring daggers at her, which she ignored as she took his arm.

"Are you sure you can – " she began, and the street began to shimmer around them. It faded to smoke, but then reappeared, whole and solid, a siren going off somewhere in the distance. Azazel made a frustrated noise and wrapped a hand around her arm, pulling her closer, closing his eyes as he strained to make the scene fade again. It did, but reappeared even quicker, and he sagged back against the wall beside them, fingers shaking around her arm.

"Okay, that's enough of that," she told him authoritatively. "I'm going to get us a room at that hotel we passed a few blocks ago." He opened his mouth to protest, but she stuck a finger in his face, cutting him off. "You better be here when I get back. You leave without me, and Erik's never going to let you live it down. Just try me, and see if I'm wrong." She shook her head. "He and Emma are going to get you killed, making us come back to Vegas every night." She turned towards the entrance to the alley, and called back over her shoulder, "Right there, I swear to god. You disappear on me, and I'll see that you regret it."

He was still there when she returned, looking rather sulky and mutinous, but he followed her back to the room quietly enough, then sank gratefully onto one of the beds. "It takes a lot out of you, doesn't it?" she asked, kneeling on the edge of his bed, looking at him stretched out. He shrugged, eyes on the ceiling. "I know when I was a kid," she continued, "I used to try to change into as many people as I could at a time. I did it once until I passed out. Scared the hell out of Charles."

"I'm not going to pass out," Azazel said sharply.

"Not now, you're not," she said brightly. She stood again, and headed for the door. "You can thank me for that when you wake up. For now, get some rest," she said. "I'm going to go find a pay phone and call Erik."

"Don't," he said, finally turning to look at her.

She raised an eyebrow. "You know his first assumption is going to be that something awful has happened to us, right? Statistically speaking, things don't work out too well for people that he's worried about. I'll just call him, tell him we're all right and we've got to take another meeting in the morning, and we can deal with – " she waved a hand at Azazel " – this, once we figure out a plan."

"Magneto cannot know I've failed."

She rolled her eyes. "The only failing you've done here is that you didn't _mention_ the fact that maybe traveling across the country twice a day is not the best of plans for you. God forbid men have human limitations."

"I suggest not using the word 'human' when you talk to him," Azazel offered.

"Go to sleep," Raven said dismissively, and closed the door between them.

He was still sleeping when she returned, curled up facing the blank wall, tail twitching as he dreamed. She settled onto the other bed with a map of the country and the list of possible recruits that Emma had provided them, and she began plotting a new course.  
______________

Emma was sitting by the window when Raven let herself into her hotel room, all the lights off, her white dress glimmering with the neon of the city.

"I thought this was supposed to be my room," Raven said, snapping the lights on and enjoying the way Emma blinked harshly in the sudden glare.

"It is," she said. There was a glass in her fingers, and the ice cubes inside rattled as she turned smoothly to face her. "He wanted to know about the last few meetings you took, and this will be quicker than a debriefing." Raven felt the familiar sting of Emma searching her mind, and relaxed, letting her, handing over everything she knew about the most recent mutants they'd met with. "Pity about the one in Dayton," she said. "He could have been useful."

"We knew it was a risk," Raven pointed out, "going after younger mutants. We know that's going to be Charles's primary goal too. He's running a _school_."

"It was worth trying, this time."

"This time, yeah. It won't always be," Raven said. "We can't afford for it to be a fight every step of the way."

"We're not fighting them."

Raven raised her eyebrows. "No?" she asked. "Then what exactly are we doing here?"

Emma looked at her levelly. "Waiting for them to realize they're wrong."

Raven laughed. "We're going to be waiting a long time, I think."

"A lifetime, probably." Emma didn't sound concerned. She stood and looked Raven up and down. "You can lose the traveling clothes," she said. "It's not like I'm company."

Raven glanced down at herself, then let her skin ripple back to blue. She looked at Emma, and shrugged. "Same to you," she pointed out.

Emma's laugh was like glass as she swept by her towards the door. "Oh, sweetie. Just because I look different sometimes doesn't mean I'm like you." She looked down at herself, smoothing down an invisible wrinkle on her skirt. "This _is_ my natural form."

Raven waited until the door had shut behind her to throw the nearest breakable object at it, just for the sake of propriety, but she could still hear Emma laughing in her head from the hallway.  
______________

The party was loud, and crowded, and the fun had worn off it about an hour and a half ago. It had been good, in the beginning, leaning over a pair of drinks with Angel, charming the hell out of a few guys Erik was hoping to impress. Erik making his way through the crowd with practiced ease, a smile that looked too easy, too unfamiliar on his face. He'd sat with Raven for a while, in a booth in the corner, and he'd let the smile gradually fade, the weariness show, for just a few minutes while they talked, but then Emma had come over, leading a man in an important-looking suit, and Raven had made her apologies and ducked away with a quick squeeze to Erik's arm.

The retreat to Erik's study was unplanned, but necessary, and as soon as the door closed behind her and the noise faded, she felt some of the tension drain from her body. She turned for the bar in the corner, and was halfway through pouring herself a stiff drink when Erik's chair swung around.

"Goddamnit, don't _do_ that," she said to Azazel.

"Apologies," he offered, then raised the glass in his hand. "Cheers."

"Hiding from the staring crowds?" she guessed, settling into one of the chairs across from him.

He shrugged. "It's not quite as easy for me to do it in plain sight as it is for you."

She morphed into him for a second and looked down at herself. "I see what you mean." She was pleased to see it bring a faint smile to his face. She changed back, then waved at the door to the party. "I bet Emma could help you with that, if you wanted."

"She has other things on her mind tonight," he pointed out. "Mingling is not my strong suit."

Raven laughed, propping her feet up on the desk. "Having spent so long traveling with you, I expected you to be a phenomenal conversationalist."

"You found me to be a good audience, you mean," he said. "Most don't consider that the same thing."

"Pretty much everyone out there would," she said.

He smiled. "Perhaps." He waved his tail at the empty room. "I find the company better in here."

"Should I leave you to converse with the books, then?" she offered.

"They don't seem to appreciate it the same way you do," he said, and she found herself looking at a puff of smoke as he appeared behind her at the bar. He poured himself another drink, then reappeared in Erik's chair before all the residue had even cleared.

"They probably have smarter things to say than I do."

"Some of them, possibly." He made a face. "But not all."

Raven laughed. "Judging Erik's taste in reading material?"

Azazel smiled slightly, then looked at her seriously. "You're the only one he lets call him that."

"No, I'm not," she corrected immediately.

"Anymore," he added.

"He doesn't wear the helmet all the time," she said, which was probably a vague not-answer to Azazel, but he nodded like he understood anyway.

His next comment confirmed it. "If they asked," he said, "would you go back to them?"

"They have," she said, and his surprise gave away that it wasn't a detail Emma had shared with the others. "Just once. They won't again."

He was silent for a long moment, swallowing what was left of his drink. "Good," he finally said.

"Why do you ask?" She raised an eyebrow, smiling a little. "Magneto worries?"

His lips curved up, recognizing his own words. "No," he replied, meeting her eyes and holding them. "I do."

It was easier than she expected to get up, circle the desk, and fold herself into his arms there in the chair, pressing their mouths together in a passion that she was only starting to realize had been building for months. All the nights he'd stood by her side on that hopeless street that led to a motel in shambles, the nights on the road, listening to each other sleep, the comfortable feeling of her arm looping into his, leaning against him, letting him carry her along with him. It all led to this, her body pressing against his, shifting back into her own form there in his grasp, his hands warm and solid against her back as the study dissolved around them and she found herself pushing him back into the yielding surface of a mattress. They fucked there in his bed without any of the desperation she would have expected if she'd ever considered it. Slow and drawn out, his noises muffled against the skin of her throat, her back arching as he thrust into her, the two of them pressed together in a restless tangle of desire and release.

She slept there, afterward, for a while, lulled by the familiar sounds of him breathing in his sleep. When she woke, she stared at the ceiling for an endless amount of time, wishing for his powers to transfer to her, so she didn't have to be the one to sneak out in the dull gray hours of the morning. It didn't work, of course, and she tried not to feel the curious grasp of Emma's mind as she made her way past her room, and back to her own.  
______________

"How long has this been happening?"

"A few days now," Raven admitted, pacing back and forth across Emma's room. "It hasn't mattered, since I've only been around you guys, but…"

"That's not going to be the case on Friday," Emma filled in.

"Exactly. And I thought maybe I was just tired, but it's not going away. I couldn't go to Erik yet, because I don't _know_ what's wrong, so…" Raven shrugged, pausing in her pacing to look at Emma with what she hoped wasn't quite pleading. "I thought maybe you could tell me what's happening."

"You're completely unable to change?" Emma asked. She stepped closer, looking at Raven's skin as if it held the secrets to its sudden inability to shift.

"Completely," Raven confirmed. "I try, and I try, and…" she waved her hands at her blue form. "Well, you see."

"Can I…?" Emma made a gesture that reminded Raven so sharply of Charles that it pained her for a moment, but she nodded.

"You can." It was the first time Emma had ever asked permission. It should have meant something, and at any other time it might have, but Raven was busy looking at Emma's expression, trying to read anything at all from it.

"Oh," she said, quietly, and Raven felt a sharp emptiness in her mind as Emma drew back.

"Oh?" Raven prompted. "What is it? Is something wrong with me? Am I never going to be able to change again?" The thought of being stuck like this filled her with dread. There had been a day when she would have given anything to hand her abilities over on a silver platter to the first person who asked, but now the thought of losing the one thing that gave her purpose, the one thing that made her belong here with these people, filled her with dread.

"No," said Emma, too quickly, too caring, and her touch on Raven's shoulder was unexpectedly gentle. "You're all right, Mystique. Raven. You're fine. It's temporary."

Raven breathed out a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank god," she said. "What's wrong? Is it a virus or something? A mutant cold?"

The corner of Emma's mouth twisted up. "Not quite _that_ temporary," she said. "It might take you a couple months to shake it."

" _Months?_ " Raven asked, horrified.

"Nine of them, to be exact."

Raven blinked. "Oh, no," she said. "Oh, _hell_ no."

"Perhaps I should call for Azazel," Emma said. "It seems congratulations are in order."

Raven let her head sink into her hands. "This is a disaster," she said.

"This," Emma replied, "is exactly what we've been waiting for."  
______________

Erik looked down at the tiny blue fingers wrapping around his own in wonder. "He's strong," he said. He looked back up at Raven and smiled. "Of course," he added, "I wouldn't have expected anything different."

Raven stretched, flickering between a few bodies, her muscles still feeling tight after long months of inactivity. She got up and paced a few circles around the room while Erik had what appeared to be an intense and wordless conversation with Kurt. She settled back into her own form, and Erik glanced up at her. "Did you miss it," he asked, "these last few months?"

"More than I ever could have guessed," she admitted. "I went a little stir crazy there at the end. You should be glad you were in Europe."

"I hope it wasn't too unbearable." Erik's eyes were back on the baby, his little pointed tail curling up around Erik's wrist.

"Believe it or not," Raven said, "Emma helped."

Erik smiled. "I believe it," he said. "I'm just surprised that you do."

Raven shrugged. "I don't know why," she said. "I'm sure she's got her reasons, and I'll find them out soon enough."

"Or you won't," Erik added. "Hazards of living with a telepath. There's no way to know what _they're_ thinking."

"Oh, I know," Raven said with feeling. She went over to the crib, leaning next to Erik, recognizing an opening when she saw one. "You know he won't be staying here," she said. "With us, I mean."

Erik glanced up at her, and at least had the courtesy not to pretend to be surprised. "I suspected as much." He let Kurt gnaw at his fingers a little. "I expect there's not much I could say to make you change your mind?"

She sighed. "What could we teach him here, Erik? What would he learn from us?"

"Everything he needs to."

She shook her head. "Do you know what Emma said to me, when she found out I was pregnant?"

His face hardened a little, looking more like the Erik she'd come to recognize. "I do," he said, "and she was wrong to say it."

"Maybe," Raven said, "but that doesn't mean she didn't mean it. And I don't mind telling you that scares the hell out of me." She reached for Kurt, picking him up and settling him against her shoulder, his tail waving in the air behind him. "We don't have a school for him, Erik. And we could teach him, all of us, but as much as you say we don't want this to come down to a fight, we know that it will. It always will – we're never going to be able to _stop_ fighting, not really, not against someone. And I don't want that life for him. Not now, not until he's old enough to choose it."

Erik nodded. "I know," he said simply. He circled around Raven, and when she glanced back, she could see him looking seriously at the baby. "I suppose I will have to take the next few years, and teach you everything I know," he said. "Just be sure that you don't forget it."

Kurt made a small noise, then sneezed and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Erik started, then burst out laughing. "Oh, you are going to have your hands full with this one," he said, sounding delighted.

A few moments later, Azazel appeared in front of her, and settled the baby back into her arms. "I think you dropped this?" he said. They shared a smile over Kurt's head, Azazel nodded at Erik, and then he disappeared again.

"Luckily," Raven said, "he's only learned two places to go so far."

"God help you when he figures out more," Erik said, grinning.

She shouldn't have been surprised, that night, to find Erik standing outside her door, Kurt in his arms, happily gnawing at the shoulder of his pajamas. He looked half amused and half annoyed as he handed the baby over wordlessly, and Raven beamed at him over Kurt's blue head. "You brought this on yourself," she pointed out. "He's apparently ready to hear everything you have to teach him."

"First lesson," Erik said, leaning to eye level with the baby, "is that there are very few things that cannot wait until after you've had a good night's sleep."

Raven laughed. "Since when have you ever taken that advice?"

"No sense letting him make the same mistakes the rest of us do," Erik said, then straightened up and headed back towards his room.

Kurt babbled nonsensically after him, waving his arms and tail happily.  
______________

"Has anyone ever told you that you look very much like your mother?"

It twisted something inside of Raven to realize that she barely recognized Charles's voice anymore. The touch of his mind against hers – light, brief, noninvasive – was the same as she remembered, but his voice was lower, calmer, with an authority he'd only just been beginning to understand when she left.

"Blue, you mean?" Raven asked, keeping her voice light and a little mocking.

Charles frowned. "No," he said, propping his arms on his knees, leaning down to look at Kurt. "I mean his eyes." Whatever he was thinking at Kurt made him burst out in a beaming smile, and Charles sat up almost abruptly. "And that." His voice was strained, and when he looked up at Raven, she should see his eyes shining a little.

Kurt nodded, holding tighter to Raven's hand. "Yes, everyone tells me that." He whipped his tail out from behind him and waved it around. "Until they see this."

Charles beamed at him. "Well, that is a _brilliant_ mutation, young Mr. Wagner."

"That's not all I can do," Kurt added, and Raven had to wonder what it was that Charles had said in his mind to earn him this instant display of conversational skills. Kurt had always taken more after his father in that department, quiet until it proved necessary to be otherwise.

"I know," Charles said, leaning forward with a smile. "I'll tell you what. There's a library on the floor just above this one, and right now it is full of children just about your age, working on their studies. Why don't you pop up there and take a look around while I talk to your mother for a few minutes."

Kurt glanced up at Raven, and at her nod, he bit his lip. "Like…" he hedged, and waved a hand.

"Yes," Charles answered for her, "like that."

Kurt's face split into a beam, and he disappeared into blue smoke with a cracking noise.

"Oh, he's wonderful," Charles said, grinning at her, and then he sobered slightly, catching her eyes and holding them. "Thank you," he said. "For bringing him here."

"He likes you already," Raven said.

"It must be because of all the wonderful things you've been telling him about me," Charles said teasingly. "Since, of course, there's nothing else to say."

"Of course," she said dryly. She tried to smile, but found herself swallowing down a lump in her throat instead. "Charles," she began, but there was too much to say, too many years of silence, and instead she crossed the room in a couple of steps, going to her knees by his chair and taking his hand. She lifted her head to look him directly in the eyes, then slowly, deliberately, brought his fingers to her temple and closed her eyes.

It had been years – nearly decades – since she'd first asked him not to do this, but the feeling was familiar and oddly comforting, his reach gentler than Emma's, the thoughts shifting naturally in her mind as he made his way through them. She held tightly to his hand, and when he pulled back, they were both breathing heavily, his fingers tangling into hers and holding them. "I've missed you," he said, his voice broken and hollow.

She didn't have the words to agree, and didn't need them, so she just nodded, dropping her head to his knee and feeling his fingers settle into her hair.  
______________

Kurt was hovering two feet above his bed, holding a book with his tail, when Raven walked by his room. She paused in the doorway.

"You definitely couldn't do that when you left here," she said.

He glanced up sharply, and tumbled to the bed, arms and legs in every direction. He straightened himself and grinned sheepishly. "I still can't, really," he said, rolling onto his stomach to pick up his book from the floor. He stayed like that, kicking his legs in the air, and looked at her. "Can Dad do that?" he asked.

Raven shrugged. "I've never seen him, but you'd have to ask him."

"The Professor says it's all just a matter of control," Kurt said. His face lit up. "Maybe I could _teach_ him to."

"Maybe," Raven agreed. She smiled. "Is that the ambition of the week?" she asked. "Teacher?"

"No," Kurt said decisively. "I'm going to be an engineer." He held up his book, which looked way more complicated than anything Raven remembered reading in school at his age.

"What class is that from?" she asked.

"It's not from a class," he said. "It's from Dr. McCoy." He sighed deeply. "He won't let me help him in his lab," he said, as if it were the greatest tragedy in the world.

"Good," Raven said.

Kurt made a face, but then brightened again. "But he's giving me extra lessons," he said, excitedly. "He says someday the Professor's going to make him get an assistant."

Raven smiled, feeling the dull ache she'd pushed aside for so long get a little stronger. "What is he teaching you?"

" _Everything_ ," Kurt said delightedly. "Did you know he built a _plane_? When he was a _teenager_."

"I did know that."

Kurt flopped back onto the bed dramatically. "He's pretty much the most excellent mutant in the _world_ ," he said.

Raven smiled, half wishing there was a way to go back in time and show this moment to the Hank she'd first met, with his shy smile, the way his fingers shook, the half-uncertain tone to everything he said. "He pretty much is," she agreed quietly, and then settled onto the bed next to Kurt to make him show her his book.  
______________

She took a plane to a train to a local bus, and watched out the window as the trees whipped by outside. Azazel had been in the hallway when she left her room, suitcase in hand, and he'd looked her up and down with something that wasn't quite a smile. "I could…" he offered, but she shook her head.

"Not this time."

He took her suitcase instead, and walked her to the lobby, waiting with her until in the comfortable silence they had come to expect from each other until a cab rolled up. She leaned up to press a kiss to his cheek as she left – the first they'd shared in years, and he smiled then, an actual smile, and said, "Don't get in any fights this time."

"I can hold my own in a fight," she reminded him.

"Oh, I _know_ ," he said. "Maybe I'm worried about the other guy."

She was laughing as she ducked into the cab and left the hotel behind. The trip was long, and tiring, the first time she'd traveled by human means in longer than she could remember. The hotel at the end of the bus route was even more worn down than she recalled, and when she flopped out onto the bed, morphing back to blue, she could see that the ceiling was still cracked in patterns she hadn't realized she'd remember.

The knock on the door was quiet, hesitant, and when she opened it, Hank was shuffling from foot to foot, nervous in a way she hadn't seen since he'd taken this form. She held the door open for him, closed it, and stood against it, looking him over. No different from the last time she'd seen him, except for the eyes, which were tired.

"You _do_ need an assistant," she told him, smiling. He swallowed and opened his mouth to speak, so she cut him off. "We're not fighting," she said.

"No?" he raised an eyebrow.

"No. We're just waiting for you to agree."

It look a long time for his serious expression to break, but then he was laughing, shaking his head. "Tell him he's going to be waiting a long time, then."

"Oh, I have." She smiled back, then held out her hands. "I showed Charles everything I know when I dropped Kurt off at your school, Hank. I have nothing to hide."

"I know."

"We're not on opposite sides, really."

"We're just not on the same one?" Hank filled in.

"Something like that."

He shook his head. "This is a terrible idea."

"It always has been," she agreed. "But for all the good ideas you have on a daily basis, don't you think you're allowed one bad one?" She stepped forward into his space, but didn't reach for him. They stood there like that for what felt like an impossibly long time, until he let out a great sigh and his hand came up to press against her back, pulling her close to him.

She buried her face against his shoulder and they stood like that, holding onto each other, their shadows mingling on the wall in the dim lamplight.  
______________

"I think I'm going to leave," Emma said when Raven opened the door, pushing by her into her suite.

"Why yes, of course you can come in," Raven said dryly. She closed the door behind them, then turned to face Emma, who was pacing across the room. "Leave?" she repeated. "Leave and go where?"

"How many mutants do you think are out there like you?" she asked. "Ones who don’t really agree with what Xavier's doing, not entirely, but send their kids to him anyway, because they don't know what else to do?"

"That's not – "

"All right, yes, it was more complicated for you, but for them, it might not be. What if there was an alternative?"

"You want to open a school," Raven said, not a question.

"I have a plot of land, in Massachusetts, left to me by my family. I've talked it over with Magneto," she added, "and he agrees."

Raven raised an eyebrow. "You have family."

"I have a lot of things that you'll never know about," Emma said.

"So why are you telling me this?"

Emma looked at her. "Isn't it obvious?" Raven just looked back. "You should come with me."

Her laugh was strained. "I'm sorry? You've never liked me."

"It's not personal," Emma said. "I don't like anyone."

"What would I even teach?"

Emma looked a little surprised at that. She shook her head, smiling a little. "Why, anything in the world."

Raven shook her head. "I can't," she said. "Erik's political plans are…" she waved a hand. "I think we're headed for Washington. I'm surprised he doesn't think he'll need you too."

Emma shrugged. "I'm still only a teleport away," she pointed out. She looked at Raven searchingly, and Raven could feel her thoughts reaching into her mind. "You mean it," she said. "You mean to stay."

"I have work to do here," Raven said. "You have yours, and I wish you luck at it." She found herself mildly surprised to realize that she meant it.

Emma nodded and turned for the door. "If you ever change your mind," she said, and left the offer hanging.

"I won't," Raven replied.

"I know."

The door closed between them, and for the first time in a long time, so did the constant connection between their minds. Raven leaned against the counter, a wave of unexpected loneliness washing over her. When her phone rang, she reached for it without looking up, pressing the receiver to her ear.

"What next?" she asked Erik, and listened to a long crackling silence on the other end of the line.

"That," he finally said, "is what I called to ask you."


End file.
